Current Watching

[Patrick Thistle]

Watched the first episode of Everything Sucks on Netflix last night. It was OK but really tried too hard to show it was set in the 90s. Unrealistic conversations about the re-release of Star Wars and a discussion about 'Ironic' by Alanis Morissette. But that aside it was watchable and has a 90s-ish indie rock sound track.

[Ginger Yellow]

and a discussion about 'Ironic' by Alanis Morissette

To be fair, I overheard a group having that discussion just last week. It seems evergreen.

[anton pulisov]

A film called Mute is on Netflix from tomorrow.

It is the "spiritual sequel" to 2009's Moon with Sam Rockwell, if director Duncan Jones is to be believed. Moon was very good, so I will be streaming this tomorrow...

[wiblflibl]

That sounds worth a try, I thought Moon was good'un.

We've been watching season one of Riverdale which is much better than we expected from a teen drama tv series.

[WOM]

Yeah, our feeling too. So weird and dark, but....it's Archie.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, our feeling too. So weird and dark, but....it's Archie.

Fallon may be onto something here. There's great potential for grittyreboots of all your childhood favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/user/GrittyReboots/videos

[Satchmo Distel]

A bugbear of mine is the failure of writers to reconstruct a year I lived through. 1996 should not be hard. But those writers might just have a tin ear for how people speak generally.

[Hot Pepsi]

A bugbear of mine is the failure of writers to reconstruct a year I lived through. 1996 should not be hard. But those writers might just have a tin ear for how people speak generally.

There's a very worthy film out now - on netflix, maybe - called Landline. It's about a family in New York going through stuff, but it's set in 1995 because, the writers explain, so much of the interaction between the characters wouldn't happen in the smartphone era.

[Hot Pepsi]

A film called Mute is on Netflix from tomorrow.

It is the "spiritual sequel" to 2009's Moon with Sam Rockwell, if director Duncan Jones is to be believed. Moon was very good, so I will be streaming this tomorrow...

Really looking forward to this one.

[Amor de Cosmos]

A bugbear of mine is the failure of writers to reconstruct a year I lived through. 1996 should not be hard. But those writers might just have a tin ear for how people speak generally.

Yeah this. It leaps out everytime. People didn't end sentences with "Yeah?" in 1970, they just didn't. And "synchronicity" wasn't in common usage in 1966. The other thing is getting the way people danced wrong. YouTube's full of old videos, it's not hard to figure out that people didn't routinely wave their arms in the air in the mid-1960s.

[anton pulisov]

Really looking forward to this one.

Unfortunately it is quite possibly one of the worst films I have ever seen.

[Hot Pepsi]

I gave up on it after 10 minutes.

Now getting into The Frankenstein Chronicles. So far it’s as much about the history of medicine as a gothic horror. Intriguing.

Spoiler
I don’t entirely understand the end of Babylon Berlin - or the end of what’s on Netflix so far.

I thought the train was going back to Russia. But it ends up with whatsername in Paris? And that Totskyist guy is still alive? I barely recognized him.

And the the whole business with the girl working as a maid for the Councillor. She thought his crew murdered her boyfriend Fritz so she helped the Reds blow him up, only to discover that Fritz wasn’t dead but actually a Nazi? Did I get that right?

[Amor de Cosmos]

[spoiler] The train does go back to Russia, Sorokina ends up in Paris but she doesn't have the gold (or the train.) And, yes, Greta was used by the Nazis (posing as Reds) to kill the (Jewish) councillor. [/spoiler]

I really hope there's a second series. There are so many loose ends one must surely be planned.

[Hot Pepsi]

I see. Well, presumably she’ll still want to get the train.

Apparently, what we saw was season 1 and 2.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yeah. I'm not sure why it's series 1 & 2 as it appeared pretty seamless.

I'm not familiar with the books so I don't know if she'll reappear or not. I'd guess that the train is gone for good.

[Satchmo Distel]

We've just starting watching Shetland, beginning with the two-part pilot. OK so far.

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m getting into The Crown. Regardless of the subject, it’s extremely well made and a beautiful period piece.

I didn’t realize, for some reason, that George VI died after Liz was already married with kids or that Queen Mary died after him. Nor did I know that Edward VII was a Nazi-sympathizer dick.

It’s also not as flattering as I expected. So far the Duke of Edinburgh is coming off as a bit of a dick.

Getting rid of royalty, titles, and all that Dungeons & Dragons shit was America’s great innovation, but I am starting to see the benefits of the parliamentary system and a separate head of state. It’s nice to be able to form and dissolve governments - in the parliamentary sense - as the situation merits. without everyone freaking out about the need for “stability.”

And I was reading up on the full list of people who are “in line” for the throne - wiki lists about 40 - and it seems that they are generally far less useless than a lot of wealthy heirs in our country. Most of them seem to be doing legit charity work, military service, or just regular decent jobs. Still, it’s absurd that a modern country still has Dukes and Earls so much wealth concentrated in so few hands, but as obscenely rich people go, you could do worse.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah. I'm not sure why it's series 1 & 2 as it appeared pretty seamless.

I'm not familiar with the books so I don't know if she'll reappear or not. I'd guess that the train is gone for good.

Somebody will notice a tank made of gold.
(Which may not be structurally possible.)

[ursus arctos]

On Babylon Berlin, there are several mor books in the series (and more to come), but they have not yet shot additional episodes (though the producers are considering that).

The “series” designation is a bit misleading, as they followed each other without interruption on Sky Deutschland.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Somebody will notice a tank made of gold.
(Which may not be structurally possible.)

True. But if it is discovered — presumably in Russia — then it'd be outside the show's frame of reference.

[spoiler] Structurally it does seem unlikely, as does passing off bricks of coal as gold. They'd be way too light to convince anyone handling them. I can only assume they were supposed to remain in the cages. [/spoiler]

[Hot Pepsi]

True. But if it is discovered — presumably in Russia — then it'd be outside the show's frame of reference.

[spoiler] Structurally it does seem unlikely, as does passing off bricks of coal as gold. They'd be way too light to convince anyone handling them. I can only assume they were supposed to remain in the cages. [/spoiler]

I think so. By the time anyone tried to move them, the ruse would have done it’s work. Besides, most people have no idea what a bar of gold should feel like.

I would think gold is too soft to build something like that and would collapse under its own weight. Perhaps it was an alloy or had some kind of supports.

[Hot Pepsi]

On Babylon Berlin, there are several mor books in the series (and more to come), but they have not yet shot additional episodes (though the producers are considering that).

The “series” designation is a bit misleading, as they followed each other without interruption on Sky Deutschland.

I hope they do.

[Hot Pepsi]

Watching The Crown has sent me down several wikiholes in the last few hours.

I learned more than I could possibly remember about the Australian constitutional crisis.

And reading up on the Royals. Edward Duke of Wessex really is pretty useless, isn’t he? Andrew seems to be a bit brighter, but associates with a lot of shady characters.

Ann was a hot mess, wasn’t she?

[anton pulisov]

I gave up on it after 10 minutes.

I held out to the end, admittedly while reading the news and doing other things.

The end was not too bad. But that's probably more due to the feeling of relief of the film having finally ended.

[hobbes]

Got Thor Ragnarok arriving on 4K Blu Ray today.
That's tonight's watching sorted.